The show "boys over flowers" is translated from 花より男子, ostensibly a correct translation. But 男子 (boys) is a homophone of 団子 (a sweet dumpling) and the entire p

The show "boys over flowers" is translated from 花より男子, ostensibly a correct translation. But 男子 (boys) is a homophone of 団子 (a sweet dumpling) and the entire phrase 花より団子 is an aphorism for preferring practicality over aesthetics. Did you understand that? Of course. Yet, a joke that has to be explained loses something of itself. Weirdly, I am fluent in Japanese, Urdu, and English. I believe that while translations have their value, they always fail to do justice – even when translated by the author! A poem is, like a joke, largely about what it affects in the audience, and such an evanescent quality is nigh impossible to preserve completely in translation, or even in a retelling. This is why I was rather upset when Youtube began silently auto-translating audio for me with no indication of it not being the original audio (it's especially bad if you look at shorts and are multilingual...you could easily mistake what was a catchy Japanese song for English AI slop).